


Silence

by themus



Series: Fault [3]
Category: The OC
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, F/M, Heavy Angst, Major Character Injury, Permanent Injury, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-13
Updated: 2007-09-13
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:53:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themus/pseuds/themus
Summary: That day was too bright.





	Silence

That day was too bright, like someone was laughing in her face with the joy of the elements.  The sun was up high, sparkling on the ocean waves which twisted and thrashed against each other like pups playing, nipping excitedly at the cliff bottom where the rocks protruded, softer and more rounded than Summer remembered. 

The day was too bright.

Up so high, away from the clash of water against rock, the noise lost its ferocity and became a gentle whisper.  The ferocity would have been more welcome, more suiting.  The gentleness didn't seem right.

"It's so quiet," she said, her voice sounding far away too, as if she was hearing it through a tunnel, padded with cotton.  "It seems wrong somehow."

Ryan was ironically silent, as always, his knees bent and hugged to his chest, mirroring her own posture as they sat side by side.

Impulsively, she reached over and touched him, felt the heat searing into her hand where the sun was baking his black denim jeans.  She retracted her fingers quickly, putting her hand to the prickly grass instead, but he didn't notice.

She'd have to remember, next time, not to let him wear those.

Below, the seagulls dipped and swept across the gold-tipped foam, cackling.

An ant crawled up her hand and Summer watched it tickling its way across her fingers and back down her thumb, feelers wiggling in some strange dance.

"Maybe we should go home," she suggested.  "The Cohens will start worrying soon."  Even though she had her cellphone on, their number programmed in on speed dial.  Number one, where Seth's used to be.

Ryan shook his head at that, pain crossing his eyes - a rippling wave through the pale blue.  "They didn't--," he began, as he always did, choking on the words.  "You don't--"

"I know," she interrupted, a little harshly, not wanting to hear the words again.  "But I want to."  She tugged at the grass under her hand, pulling it free from the hard clay below.  "So you'll just have to get used to it," she added, managing to inject a little playful petulance into her words.

The pain flashed again, and then was gone.  "Thank you."

Summer shrugged and lay back, squinting at the clouds which skudded across the too-bright sky.  She marvelled how something so innocuous as a clump of floating rain could be so hurtful to watch.  But it was free and blithesome, spirited along by the wind.  And they . . . they were captive and rooted to the earth.

And it wasn't fair.

She turned her head to the side, slowly blinking back the tears, trying not to sniff so that he wouldn't notice her almost-weeping.

The breeze was still pulling lightly at the grass stems; the seagulls were still calling out; the waves were still brushing against the cliffs.  And it wasn't fair.  But that was something they would all have to get used to.

The grass tickled her elbow and the side of her hip where her t-shirt was riding up.

"You don't want to go back yet," she stated for him.

Ryan never wanted to go back.  Not to that house, where the tension in the air bubbled over into everything else - leaked into every room, into the very ticking of the clock.

"I heard what happened yesterday," she said, looking out over the rolling ground to where it fell away, sharply, leading her eyes to the distant blue horizon.  The images came unbidden to her mind again, the way they had described it, of him sitting at the edge of the pool, staring into the depths of it as if it held all the answers.

She didn't expect an answer, any acknowledgement of the event.  But she heard him sob - a dry, rusty inhalation - and her heart tightened inside her chest.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he whispered while she lay frozen on the lumpy soil, looking away from him.  "They weren't supposed to take me back."

The gulls were laughing again when Summer managed to move; sitting up and pulling him into her arms.  He was a puppet without strings - head flopping inward to rest on her neck, legs slipping straight, hands clenching empty air.

She noted, as he shuddered in her embrace, that the laces of his sneaker were creeping to one side, loops drooping over the instep.

Summer rubbed a hand up and down Ryan's arm, the fingers of the other across the back of his neck as the breeze kissed her hair.  She didn't bother whispering soft platitudes into his ear.  She knew how meaningless they were.

Eventually Ryan quieted, slumping further as if he had expended all of his energy on tears, and Summer let her hand drift up across his shoulder, down his spine, tracing the waistline of his jeans as it puckered under the shirt.  Ryan was breathing, raw and quiet against her collarbone, his eyelashes brushing against the bone with fluttering touches.  Her fingers found the button of his jeans, followed the zip down, and he twitched under her hand.

"Don't," he moaned, although he didn't push her away, and she felt his eyes squeezing shut tight.  "Don't," he whispered again, and she knew that this time it wasn't because of Seth or Marissa or her but just because.  Because the breeze was laughing at him and the sun was pointing and the day was too bright for this dark pain.

She removed her hand and he sighed, body shaking as if he was cold even though her fingers were still burning from the heat of his clothes.

"I guess we should just go home."

Ryan sighed again, his breath soughing over her skin.  "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"I know."  Summer glanced over her shoulder, followed the path which dissected the hill's gentle slope, leading down to the parking lot and the Cohens' newly converted Rover.  Only a few feet behind them - metal gleaming in the sun, was Ryan's new wheelchair.  "Come on," she said, "I'd better get you back.  We can go somewhere else tomorrow."

Somewhere inside where it was dark and the day couldn't mock him with its playful brightness.  She would take him away from that house where his bedroom door looked out on Seth's and every kindness was a reminder that he hadn't paid his dues.

He was stocking up on guilt, and the world kept spitting out innocence.  It should have been storming, lashing rain against the windows, screaming out its anger.

"I'm sorry," Ryan breathed as Summer helped him manoeuvre his half-dead body into the wheelchair.

She pulled his shirt straight, bent down to tuck his feet onto the plates, retying his sneaker with quick, efficient movements.  She didn't know what he was apologising for this time, but in a way it never mattered.  The response would always be the same.

"It's not your fault, Atwood."


End file.
